CrossFade: The Dueling Album Review Show
69 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 months ago -CrossFade is a dueling album review show about expanding your musical horizons hosted by Matt Helgeson. Released every two weeks, CrossFade has guests introduce one of their favorite albums of all time to Matt Helgeson (and vice versa) as they review the highlights, play clips, and compare each other's picks. On every episode, we answer questions from the community via MinnMax's Patreon page - https://www.patreon.com/minnmax
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Episodes
Give to the Max 2023: Ne Obliviscaris's "Portal Of I"
January 05, 2024 17:00 - 1 hour - 99.9 MBSurprise! It’s a special episode of CrossFade, thanks to a generous member of the MinnMax community. On Give to the Max Day, the MinnMax community raised more than $57,000 to help foster kids in Minneapolis. One of the many appealing donation rewards was an episode of CrossFade where the donor got to choose the album we talked about! Chris Fayter (a.k.a. Crayter) chose “Portal Of I,” the debut album of Australian prog metal band Ne Obliviscaris, which became one of his COVID-era comfort lis...
Ending Season 2 with the Last Community Shuffle for A While, Probably!
December 30, 2022 13:00 - 1 hour - 69.5 MBCrossFade is taking a break! We haven’t picked a return date yet, but Matt and Jason have ideas about how to make it even better going forward. We decided to end this season on a high note by bringing back the CrossFade Community Shuffle. It’s an episode where dozens of our Patreon supporters send us their current favorite songs, we shuffle a bunch of them, and we listen to and talk about them live on the show! It’s one of our favorite CrossFade traditions, so we hope you enjoy it. You can...
Neil Young, “Our Rock Dad” with Tyler Wilcox
December 23, 2022 13:00 - 1 hour - 48.2 MBNeil Young’s had quite a career. A hugely influential solo career, his work with CSNY, that thing during The Last Waltz, and now you can’t even hear his music on the biggest music streaming platform on Earth. Wow! To finally crack the nut on Neil, Matt brought in writer and fellow Neil Young fanatic Tyler Wilcox for an in-depth discussion on two essential Neil records: Citizen Kane Jr. Blues 1974 (Live at The Bottom Line) and Tonight’s the Night. Take a listen to some Real Neil with the big...
The Impact of Yo! MTV Raps in 13 Songs
December 09, 2022 13:00 - 1 hour - 62.8 MBWas rap already everywhere by the time you were old enough to choose what you wanted to listen to? If so, then it might be hard to imagine how important a show like Yo! MTV Raps was for the genre and for the music industry as a whole. It only ran for seven years, but in that time, it had an indelible impact on the kinds of music people were exposed to. In this episode, Matt (who was around for the rise of rap) and Jason (who was not) pore over the show’s lasting impact by listening to some ...
11 Songs to Remember Mimi Parker of Low
November 25, 2022 13:00 - 1 hour - 53.3 MBWe’ve talked a lot about the Duluth-based indie rock band Low on this show, because Matt knows them well and Jason’s never heard them. In the wake of co-founder/drummer/vocalist Mimi Parker’s death in early November 2022, we wanted to dedicate an episode to a short retrospective on the group and Mimi’s contributions to it. If you know Low, we hope this is a faithful look back at the group’s impact. If you’re new to the group, we hope you find a lot to love. Also, Matt put together a Spotify...
Bruce Springsteen & Archers Of Loaf with Natalie Marlin
November 11, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 76.4 MBThis episode of CrossFade (The BossFade?) featuring writer, podcaster, and music journalist Natalie Marlin (https://twitter.com/NataliesNotInIt/) is devoted to rock icon Bruce Springsteen and ‘90s indies Archers of Loaf! Matt and Natalie chat a lot about the kinds of stories Bruce tells through his music and what makes his mild corniness endearing, as well as why Archers Of Loaf’s sound cut through the Pavement-esque slacker rock vibe of the ‘90s. Follow Natalie on Twitter at https://twitte...
Cinderella & Def Leppard with Elana Levin
October 28, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 80 MBLike the bodacious ‘dos from which the sound gets its name, “hair metal” can be a hard genre to pin down! Luckily, we’ve got writer/podcaster/critic/organizer and hair metal fan Elana Levin to run through two genre classics to help set some things straight! Matt and Elana cover Def Leppard’s “Hysteria” (the one with “Pour Some Sugar On Me” on it) and “Long Cold Winter” by Cinderella (one of the bands featured in HBO’s Peacemaker TV series). In this episode, they chat about what makes hair m...
7 Songs to Remember Pharoah Sanders (1940 - 2022)
October 14, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 47.1 MBPharoah Sanders (not “Pharaoh”) was a disciple of John Coltrane and a pioneer in his own right, putting spiritual jazz on the map with unique, genre-blending textures. You can’t truly encapsulate an artist like Pharoah Sanders in a few songs, but on this episode, we pay our respects to the legend with seven songs that we think exemplify some of the broad strokes in artist’s sonic palette. We’d love it if you’d rate and review CrossFade on iTunes, ‘cause it means more people can find the sho...
Charley Crockett & New Kingdom with Infinity Knives (Tariq Ravelomanana)
September 23, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 51.6 MB“When I say ‘I like everything,’ I really, really like everything.” So says Tariq Ravelomanana (https://twitter.com/infinitykniives), who creates music under the name Infinity Knives. He means it, too: He gets inspiration from everywhere: folk, country, experimental, grunge, pop, hip-hop, prog, rap. That idealist eclecticism comes through in his own music, including his 2022 record, King Cobra, which he created with Brian Ennals. It also led him to bring “Welcome to Hard Times,” the 2020 co...
The Wind Waker OST Listening Party with Sarah and Kyle
September 09, 2022 14:30 - 1 hour - 107 MBHoy! For a special treat, Jason gathered Kyle and Sarah (aka the other pieces of the Triforce) for a roundtable adventure through the soundtrack to The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. You can listen to it wherever you get podcasts – and in a CrossFade first, you can watch the whole discussion on YouTube at the link below! Watch this discussion on YouTube: https://youtu.be/iTiQ_7FG-OY Special thanks again to Wind Waker Game Champion Otsego12 for giving us a great reason to go back to this ...
The Great iPod Shuffle: The Bangers Housed On Our Trusty Old iPods
August 26, 2022 12:00 - 57 minutes - 41.2 MBWe recently uncovered our old iPods. We haven’t really used them for several years, so we thought it’d be a lot of fun to hit “shuffle” and see which of the tens of thousands of songs on them came up first. Then we discussed each of them on mic! We’re proud of some and cringing at a few others. It’s a real time capsule, kind of a snapshot of who we were back then! Also, what we cared enough to download and put in iTunes and fill out the metadata for (ah, the inconvenient past). Hope you enj...
Uyama Hiroto & Joy Division with Bijan Stephen
August 12, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 67.4 MBThis week on CrossFade, it’s all about the 𝓋𝒾𝒷𝑒𝓈 – which makes it a great episode for writer, critic, and podcast host Bijan Stephen’s debut! Uyama Hiroto was a close friend and collaborator with Nujabes (known best for his Samurai Champloo soundtrack and being an influential artist in the jazz/hip-hop space), and it shows in “freeform jazz,” his 2017 record featuring a lot of chill instrumental work and music that, as Bijan put it, lights up the pleasure centers of your brain. 𝒱𝒾𝒷𝑒𝓈 aren’t...
Streetlight Manifesto & Nolan Potter with John Carson
July 29, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 66.9 MBIt’s a proggy, skanky episode of CrossFade with writer, editor, and podcaster John Carson (https://twitter.com/John_Carson)! In this episode, we’re just barely scratching the surface of ska with John’s pick, Streetlight Manifesto’s “Everything Goes Numb”. Then we chart new territory with Nolan Potter’s “Music Is Dead,” one of Matt’s favorite albums to listen to on vinyl. Both are new to the other’s picks, so it turns into a really fun, big conversation about genres, how ska and its percepti...
Music that Made Us: The Doobie Brothers & Creedence Clearwater Revival
July 01, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 66.8 MBWhat music did you listen to when you were 5 years old? How did it impact the music you listen to or the way you approach it? Do you still listen to any of it today? In this chooglin’ episode of CrossFade, Matt and Jason take a suggestion from the community (thanks MinnMax supporter podbod!) and go back to some of the first music we can remember loving: The Doobie Brothers and Creedence Clearwater Revival! We talk about rock genre blending of the 1970s, complicated band dynamics, how these ...
Bon Iver & Iron Maiden with Cody Matthew Johnson
June 17, 2022 12:00 - 56 minutes - 39.7 MBWe’re thrilled to welcome Cody Matthew Johnson, known for his music and sound work on games like Trek to Yomi, Devil May Cry 5, Guardians of the Galaxy, Resident Evil 2 Remake, and many more, to compare and contrast Bon Iver with Iron Maiden! Dare you to find another show that brings together two things THAT different. We talk with Cody about how Bon Iver’s approach to music didn’t change for “22, A Million,” even if the sound did; Iron Maiden’s groundbreaking meld of catchy rock and metal ...
Nitpicking Two of Pitchfork's Perfect 10s
June 03, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 43.9 MBWhat does perfection mean to you? What if you knew someone ELSE called something “perfect”? That’s what we wanted to find out on this episode of CrossFade, so we looked at two of the dozen albums that have received a perfect 10 score from Pitchfork, the music publication everybody famously agrees with and enjoys without reservation. Wilco’s breakthrough “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” and Amon Tobin’s breakthrough “Bricolage” are pretty different (that’s CrossFade babyyyy), but our discussion bridge...
Our Favorite Albums of 2022 So Far
May 20, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 53.2 MB2022 is almost halfway over! To mark the occasion, Matt and Jason picked their favorite records released this year for this special discussion. Jason picked Soul Glo’s “Diaspora Problems” (March 25) because it’s high-energy, it bends genres, and crams a lot of righteous fury into its lyrics. Matt’s loved the work of Benny the Butcher for a long time, so his latest release, “Tana Talk 4” (March 10), is a shoo-in for Matt’s favorite records of the year. In this episode, we talk a lot about ha...
Silver Jews & The Mountain Goats with Joe Juba
May 06, 2022 12:00 - 2 hours - 87.7 MBContent warning: This episode contains discussions of sensitive topics like depression, sexual abuse, and suicide as explored in the music of The Mountain Goats and Silver Jews. MinnMax Contributor and all-around gentleman Joe Juba brought an album by one of his favorite artists to CrossFade! This episode might be the most we’ve ever delved into lyrics. The Mountain Goats’ “Heretic Pride” and Silver Jews’ “The Natural Bridge” are both albums that go heavy on storytelling, picking unique per...
Matt & Jason Raid Each Other’s Bandcamp Collections
April 22, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 69.6 MBWhat would make you buy digital music in 2022? Is it respect? Curiosity? Guilt? Little bit of all of the above? That’s what we wanted to know from each other – and why we took a dive into each other’s growing collections to interrogate each other’s music tastes! Matt and Jason each picked five songs from the other’s Bandcamp collection to talk about, poke fun at, or marvel at a new favorite we never would’ve found otherwise. It was a really fun exercise and we hope you enjoy listening to th...
Electrelane & Erase Errata with Erin Margaret Day
April 08, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 68.2 MBIt’s a mid-aughts extravaganza on CrossFade, featuring writer, critic, connoisseur and musician Erin Margaret Day (https://twitter.com/comeawaywithEMD)! Between English indie rockers Electrelane and SF experimental rock group Erase Errata, get ready for rock, noise, ambience, and more rock! With Erin, we break down the radical roots of these bands and the kind of music they play, what Electrelane’s largely instrumental album is saying without words, and how sometimes the sound of hopelessne...
The Billboard Top 20: March 2022
March 25, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 70.8 MBHowever big a left turn this is for you, you should know it’s also pretty wild for us, too. On this episode, Matt and Jason turn the dial to “POPULAR” for a look into the top 20 songs on the Billboard Top 200! We discuss which songs work for us, which don’t, and how the streaming age has made it very, VERY easy to ignore what’s on the radio. From Justin Bieber to Dua Lipa, from Future to Ed Sheeran, from show tunes to future funk, it’s a whole new world of music for people who don’t know wh...
Arcade Fire & Built to Spill with AJ Moser
March 11, 2022 13:00 - 1 hour - 65.9 MBNote: This episode was recorded and published before claims of misconduct against Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler were made public on Aug. 27, 2022. AJ Moser is the biggest Arcade Fire fan we know, and in this episode of CrossFade, he got to make the case for “Funeral” being one of the greatest indie rock records of the 21st century. Matt returned the favor with the esteemed, accessible Built to Spill record “Keep It Like a Secret,” which has the spirit and energy of jam band music but in a...
The Strokes’ “Is This It”
February 25, 2022 13:00 - 59 minutes - 43.4 MBOkay so this one’s not a duel, but it’s still a hell of an album! For this special episode, we asked the CrossFade community to vote on albums they wanted to hear us discuss. It was a tight race (sorry, Frightened Rabbit ☹) but the vox populi won out when they voted for The Strokes’ breakthrough 2001 record, “Is This It”! Listen as Matt (very smart about music) and Jason (never listened to this album before) unpack this classic NYC pop album track-by-track, including the mix, guitar solos, ...
Guns N’ Roses & Alice Cooper with Dan Ryckert
February 11, 2022 14:00 - 1 hour - 69.3 MBSeason 2 is here and so is everyone’s favorite guy on the internet, Dan Ryckert! It seems like “Chinese Democracy” is nobody’s favorite Guns N’ Roses album. It took a huge amount of money and time to make and then it underperformed when it DID come out – so why did Dan pick it? And what made Matt finally break out Alice Cooper’s “Love It to Death”? Find out in this fun episode! Follow Dan on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DanRyckert and on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/danryckert Check ...
Season 2 with Dan Ryckert Coming Feb. 11!
February 01, 2022 15:00 - 2 minutes - 1.62 MBIt’s a new year and we’re back with more CrossFade! We hope your year’s off to a great start, and we hope you’re hungry for more fun music discussions. Our first episode with Dan Ryckert drops Friday, Feb. 11. Leave a question or song suggestion by Feb. 3 on the appropriate post at https://www.patreon.com/minnmax/posts?filters%5Btag%5D=crossfade and we’ll try to bring it up on air! We’ve got a lot of fun ideas in store for season 2, so tell a friend about the show. Thanks for sticking arou...
CrossFade Intermission! The Deepest Dive - Final Fantasy VII Remake
October 19, 2021 19:15 - 2 hours - 163 MBHello CrossFade subscribers! This is MinnMax's Ben Hanson with a one-off interruption of this wonderful feed. In honor of MinnMax's 2nd anniversary, we're celebrating "Free Week" and lifting the curtain to offer free tastes of our Patreon-exclusive content. So this is The Deepest Dive on Final Fantasy VII Remake, the first part of our gigantic community game club on our Game of the Year for 2020. Normally we post The Deepest Dives on YouTube and offer the podcast version of the discussions t...
Season 1 Finale! The CrossFade Community Shuffle: The Replacements, fire-toolz, Neutral Milk Hotel & More
September 24, 2021 14:00 - 1 hour - 57.4 MBAnd that’s a wrap on Season 1 of CrossFade! We’ll be back with new episodes in 2022. For now, we wanted to celebrate our supporters with another Community Shuffle, where we shuffle their favorite songs and talk about what shakes out! This episode’s crop is particularly vibrant, so be sure to check it out to discover great new (or classic) music you might just love! A huge thank you to everyone who listens for your songs, questions, and insight! Matt and Jason will still troll around the Min...
Led Zeppelin & Peter Gabriel with Tom Salta (Deathloop)
September 10, 2021 14:30 - 1 hour - 59 MBIf at first you don't succeed, listen, listen again – welcome Tom Salta (Deathloop, Tom Clancy’s Advanced Warfighter, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, PUBG, Wolfenstein: Youngblood, and many more) to CrossFade! Tom’s a big production guy, so Peter Gabriel’s tight instrumentation and arrangements on “So” make it a really pivotal album for him. “Houses of the Holy” isn’t Led Zeppelin’s most-played album, but it’s one of their funkiest. Matt fell in love with its bigness and groove, so i...
Jimi Hendrix & Ivan Tcherepnin with Peter McConnell (Psychonauts 2)
August 27, 2021 14:30 - 1 hour - 79.8 MBGo inside the mind that created the music for the best-known video game about going inside people’s minds: Peter McConnell is on CrossFade! WIth Peter, we dissect the music of Ivan Tcherepnin, Peter’s late mentor and experimental/avant garde composer of the 20th century, and “Axis: Bold as Love,” the second record from The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Together, we find the little connections between Hendrix’s mystical playing and the sonic innovations of Tcherepnin. We also talk to Peter about ...
The Beatles vs. Queens of the Stone Age (feat. Darren Korb)
August 13, 2021 14:30 - 1 hour - 86.6 MBThe gods of guesting have been kind to us once again, and Darren Korb, audio director for Supergiant Games (Hades, Bastion, Transistor, Pyre) and voice of Zagreus in Hades, has landed in our lap to talk of Beatles and Queens! Darren loves how weird, inventive, and well-produced The Beatles’ penultimate album “Abbey Road” is, and in this episode, he talks about how that blend makes him think about his own music in different ways. Queens of the Stone Age’s “Songs for the Deaf” isn’t actually ...
The Kinks vs. Gentle Giant (feat. Marty O’Donnell)
July 30, 2021 12:30 - 1 hour - 85.9 MBThis one’s a biggie – Marty O’Donnell, composer for games like Halo, Destiny, Riven, and current audio director for Highwire Games, is on CrossFade to talk about one of the albums that convinced him to stop just playing music and start composing instead! Gentle Giant’s “Octopus” is one of Marty’s favorite records and “hugely influential” to his path as a musician and composer. If not for this album and the friends he made over it, he may have stuck to performing piano – and some of your fav...
Alkaline Trio vs. The Exploding Hearts (feat. Mike Park)
July 02, 2021 14:30 - 1 hour - 56.5 MBWelcome musician, activist, and founder of Asian Man Records Mike Park (https://twitter.com/mikeparkmusic) to CrossFade! Mike’s run his own record label for 25 years, in addition to all the music he’s written and played or the anti-racism activism he’s done throughout his career. We couldn’t be more excited to have him on the show – and talking about a record he released, no less! Alkaline Trio’s “Goddamnit” launched one of the most successful punk pop careers of the 2000s. It’s also still ...
Kendrick Lamar vs. Foo Fighters (feat. Janet Garcia)
June 18, 2021 15:30 - 2 hours - 88.2 MBWelcome MinnMax cohort, streamer, writer, critic, and former teacher Janet Garcia (https://twitter.com/gameonysus) to CrossFade! Foo Fighters was one of the bands that helped Janet discover music outside of hip-hop, so “In Your Honor” holds a really important place in her heart (and her running playlist). Matt’s pick, Kendrick Lamar’s breakthrough “good kid, m.A.A.d city” is a stunningly stylized masterwork of Compton rap storytelling. It’s so well-written, Janet even used it to teach an En...
Curtis Mayfield vs. Rush (feat. Jason Graves)
June 04, 2021 15:00 - 1 hour - 76 MBJason Graves has composed for games, movies, TV (including Dead Space, Until Dawn, Tomb Raider, The Order: 1886, The Dark Pictures Anthology, and a lot more) for decades, and now he’s on CrossFade! Jason discovered Rush sometime in high school – just the right age to be listening to new, weird stuff. A drummer, he naturally gravitated toward Neil Peart’s meticulous, mathematical rhythms on “2112,” many of which still amaze him today. We spend a good bit of time unpacking the virtuosity and ...
Weezer vs. Tropical F*** Storm (feat. Lizzie Killian)
May 21, 2021 14:50 - 1 hour - 79 MBLizzie Killian (FIFTYcc, chiptune rock band The Glowing Stars, formerly of Zynga, Humble Bundle, GamesRadar & more) joins this Weez-tastic episode of CrossFade! Something about “Pinkerton” caught Lizzie’s ear in high school. Maybe it was the rough production, disarmingly vulnerable lyrics, or just the solid solos – whatever it was, it quickly became one of her favorite albums ever. She even named her own band, The Glowing Stars, after a lyric from the track “Falling For You.” Matt’s pick, ...
The Beach Boys vs. Nina Nastasia (feat. Todd Hanson)
May 07, 2021 14:30 - 114 MBWriter and performer Todd Hanson (The Onion, Squidbillies, WTF with Marc Maron, & more) guests on this very special episode of CrossFade! Todd didn’t really get into The Beach Boys until a couple years ago, when he discovered their strange, dark album Surf’s Up, recorded in 1971 to turn around the public’s waning interest in fun-in-the-sun pop after the Summer of Love came to an official end. It’s full of beautiful, conflicted messages about protest, environmentalism, madness, and self-doub...
Girl Talk vs. Prince Paul (Anniversary Episode feat. Ben Hanson)
April 23, 2021 16:00 - 2 hours - 117 MBCrossFade turned 1 last month and we couldn’t be more pleased with how it’s been received! To celebrate, we welcomed the guest from our very first episode back to the show: MinnMax founder Ben Hanson (https://twitter.com/yozetty)! In a weird way, Ben’s pick (Girl Talk’s “Feed the Animals”) reminds us of CrossFade itself – unorthodox pairings that always dig up something new – but moreover, it’s an album he goes back to both for “dumb fun” and to marvel at the editorial decisions made to mas...
John Phillips vs. Television (feat. Matt Sweeney)
April 09, 2021 14:45 - 1 hour - 97.6 MBFreehand guitarist Matt Sweeney (heard in the Red Dead Redemption 2 soundtrack, Skunk, Chavez, and more) guests on this episode of CrossFade! He picked “John, the Wolf King of L.A.,” the first solo record from The Mamas & The Papas founder John Phillips, because of its hauntingly beautiful arrangements and its dark underbelly. The discussion focuses on how such sunny-sounding music can hide such sinister stories, and what that says about the man who embodied it all. Host Matt Helgeson chose...
Cat Stevens vs. Boards of Canada (feat. Austin Wintory)
March 26, 2021 15:45 - 1 hour - 102 MBComposer Austin Wintory (Journey, ABZÛ, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, The Pathless, The Banner Saga, and countless other games and films) is one of the best-known names in video game music – but he didn’t know anything about music for the first ten years of his life. He brought Yusuf/Cat Stevens’ 1970 hit record “Tea for the Tillerman” to CrossFade because it reminds him of his dad, and of learning music, and of the pure emotional statements that can be made through musical storytelling. Mat...
Paul Simon vs. Blue Öyster Cult (feat. Chris Remo)
March 12, 2021 16:00 - 1 hour - 45.8 MBChris Remo (Valve, Campo Santo, Gone Home, Firewatch, and the Idle Thumbs podcast) joins CrossFade for a discussion of “Graceland,” Paul Simon’s controversial career-boosting 1986 record, and why it took him until his 30s to finally like it. Matt gains another inductee to the cult of Blue Öyster Cult with their 1974 psych-rock “Secret Treaties,” which proves they were more than a one-hit wonder. Our community segment gets Chris talking about podcasting, the Fender Rhodes, and the best game s...
Beck vs. The Cure (feat. Sarah Elmaleh)
February 26, 2021 16:30 - 2 hours - 140 MBOn this voice-tastic episode of CrossFade, voice actor and activist Sarah Elmaleh (Gears 5, Anthem, Gone Home, Star Wars: Squadrons, and more https://twitter.com/selmaleh) hops in the booth with a dancy high school favorite – Beck’s funky “Midnite Vultures” – and Matt keeps things light with The Cure’s smash 1989 record, “Disintegration.” Questions from the CrossFade community include music we love from TV and film, bands that dress up later into their years, and music things we regret buyin...
Hybrid vs. Owen Pallett (feat. Gareth Coker)
February 12, 2021 16:00 - 1 hour - 55.8 MBGareth Coker (composer for film and games including Ori and the Blind Forest, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, ARK: Survival Evolved, Immortals Fenyx Rising, and Halo Infinite) doesn’t often get to gab about the music he listens to instead of the music he makes, which makes it such a treat to talk about why “Disappear Here,” the fourth album from British electronic group Hybrid, is one of his favorites. We compare Hybrid’s intensely rhythmic, building structures with the intricate harmonics an...
The CrossFade Community Shuffle: Death Grips, Gorillaz, Phish, JPEGMAFIA, Sufjan Stevens & More
January 29, 2021 16:00 - 1 hour - 91.2 MBWe’re back to the community playlist, digging through a randomly shuffled list of our MinnMax community’s favorite songs to see what shakes out! This time, the crop (including a lot of artists we’ve never even heard of!) runs the gamut from prog to rock to R&B and… whatever you call Aphex Twin (in a good way!). Thanks to everyone who left a song! Support MinnMax on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/minnmax/ Follow Matt at https://twitter.com/matthelgeson Follow Jason at https://twitter.com...
The MF DOOM Special (feat. Suriel Vazquez)
January 15, 2021 16:00 - 1 hour - 56.6 MBFew artists had an impact on the landscape around them as MF DOOM had on rap. With the reveal of his passing in 2020, we felt it was the right time to finally feature the masked madman, and who better to help us commemorate him than MinnMax’s own Suriel Vazquez (https://twitter.com/surielvazquez)? Together, we suss out what made DOOM unique, even among his peers, and why “Operation Doomsday” and “Madvillainy” are the best vertical slices of his prowess. With questions from our community, we...
Two Solid Seasonal Songs to Ring in 2021
January 01, 2021 16:30 - 17 minutes - 8.4 MBIt’s here! As a quick “thank you” you to everyone who’s listened to and supported CrossFade this year, Matt and Jason wanted to share two of their favorite songs that hold that wintertime feeling as we ring in the new year. Thanks so much for checking out our show! To jump to a particular discussion, check out the timestamps below… 9:45 - Purple Mountains - "Snow is Falling in Manhattan" 15:48 - The Zombies - "This Will Be Our Year" Follow Matt at https://twitter.com/matthelgeson, Jason ...
My Chemical Romance vs. Deerhoof (feat. Blake Hester)
December 18, 2020 16:50 - 2 hours - 57.8 MBMy Chemical Romance’s breakthrough “Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge” and Deerhoof’s “Apple O’” don’t sound anything alike, but they both represent outsider music in their own ways. In today’s episode, Matt explains why Deerhoof tickles his earhoof and Blake tries to explain what it was like to hear MCR for the first time as a churchgoing 10-year-old. Our community also asked Matt and Blake great questions about touring stories, beating your favorite song to death, and what emo music did for m...
The CrossFade Community Shuffle: Reviewing Your Favorite Songs
December 04, 2020 17:30 - 1 hour - 46.3 MBThe MinnMax community has such interesting music tastes. Listeners send us songs for every single episode, so we thought, “Why not make a whole episode out of that?” So that’s what we did! We hit shuffle on almost a playlist of almost 100 songs(!) suggested by our supporters and came up with 18 we could fit into an episode. We ended up with such a crazy set of songs, from punk to pop to Japanese thrash fusion to R&B to CB radio-themed outlaw country. It gets pretty wild and wonderful, and w...
David Bowie vs. The Dismemberment Plan (feat. John T. Drake)
November 20, 2020 17:00 - 132 MBJohn T. Drake (VP Biz Dev and Licensing for Games at Disney, fmr. PlayStation and Harmonix) joins Matt and Jason for a crazy specific episode of CrossFade! Where vocalist Travis Morrison looks inward on The Dismemberment Plan’s “Change,” Ziggy St--erm, David Bowie looks to the skies on “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” – but both tell their own specific stories. John regales us with some positively wild tales from his Harmonix days (warning: discussions of blood...
The Afghan Whigs vs. Beulah (feat. Jeff Cork)
November 06, 2020 18:48 - 2 hours - 58.9 MBIs it ‘90s in here or is it just me? Jeff Cork (BetterQuest, Game Informer) brings his beloved Beulah record, “When Your Heartstrings Break,” to CrossFade’s doorstep and Matt responds with The Afghan Whigs’s “Black Love.” Both albums are appropriately fueled by angst – sometimes about masculinity, sometimes about insecurity, and sometimes about the Civil War – and they’re full of incredible moments we couldn’t wait to dig into. Community questions get us talkin’ Foreigner, bad album covers, ...
The Van Halen Special (feat. Greg Renoff)
October 23, 2020 16:30 - 2 hours - 127 MBEddie Van Halen was it: the guitarist who helped drag hard rock into the pop age, leaving contemporaries in both performing and composition in the dust. On the occasion of his passing in October 2020, we’re joined by Greg Renoff (https://twitter.com/gregrenoff), author of “Van Halen Rising: How a Southern California Backyard Party Band Saved Heavy Metal” and “Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer's Life in Music” to look back at Van Halen’s 1978 debut album and their groundbreaking synth-led “1...